Beam: Distrust creating stalemates

You can’t help but be amused — and totally frustrated — when you read the news coming out of the nation’s Capitol in Washington,
D.C.

Immigration reform and the federal farm bill are the latest examples of Congress’ inability to get anything done.

A third simmering controversy centers around a free federal cellphone program. It is a major reason Republicans don’t trust
the Obama administration on the other two issues. So, let’s talk about the phone program first.

In 1985, the Lifeline Assistance program was created to make sure low-income citizens weren’t cut off from emergency services,
job searches or a communications device for children in single-famly homes. At first, it only covered land line phones in
homes. Cellphones were added when they became a primary source of communication.

Persons who qualify for Lifeline Assistance get a free phone and 250 free minutes and 250 free text messages each month. The
program is paid for by telephone subscribers who pay a “federal universal service charge” of up to $3.22 a month on their
phone bills.

The cost of the program was $819 million in 2008, and it mushroomed to $2.2 billion in 2012. Abuses have been rampant. Families
and individuals have received more than one phone, some are sold to buy drugs and make other purchases and enforcement has
been extremely lax.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and U.S.
Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Arkansas, want to either do away with the program
or change it
back to only cover home land lines. Their chances of succeeding
are awfully slim in view of the administration’s belief that
no checks and balances are necessary in any federal program.

Griffin said to Fox News back in March, “There is a lot of waste in it, and we need to be asking ourselves, ‘Where do we draw
the line? Do we give everybody an iPad next? A computer? Is that the role the federal government should be playing?’”

In light of recent history, none of that is out of the realm of possibility.

OK, what about the farm bill and immigration reform?

A major hang-up that defeated a
five-year farm bill in the U.S. House is the federal food stamp program.
The House bill would
have cut the $80 billion a year program by $2 billion a year. The
Senate earlier passed its farm bill by a comfortable 66-27
margin. It reduced the food stamp program by $400 million,
one-fifth of the House reduction.

Republicans say that isn’t enough. Democrats think $2 billion a year is too much. And Democrats voted against the bill in
large numbers when new work requirements were added.

Louisiana House members split down the
middle on the farm bill. U.S. Reps. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette; Bill
Cassidy, R-Baton
Rouge; and Rodney Alexander, R-Quitman, voted for the bill. Reps.
Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, John Fleming, R-Minden and Cedric
Richmond, D-New Orleans were opposed.

Do opponents of cutting the food stamp
program really believe there are no abuses that ought to be eliminated?
And have we
totally abandoned the idea that most able-bodied Americans should
try to work for a living, even when they are on the receiving
end of federal handouts?

The free phone and food stamp issues
give Americans just cause to believe a 10-year path to citizenship
shouldn’t begin right
away for 11 million illegal immigrants who are already here. A
number of Republican congressmen believe the federal government
should first prove it can stop more illegal entries at the border.

A Senate compromise on border security
would double the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents, use 18 new
unmanned surveillance
drones, add 350 miles to the existing 350 miles of border fencing
and use other devices to stop the flow. However, it is going
to take a decade to put it all in place.

“... They want to know that 10 years
from now, we won’t find ourselves in this same position, having to
address the same problem,”
he said.

House Republicans, who are skeptical, want to see some results at the border before temporary legal status is given to illegal
immigrants.

National Journal, a Washington
political news magazine, said, “Here are their demands: They want solid
border-security targets
written directly into the law, such that the federal government
can’t get around them. They want people who overstay their
visas to be deportable. They want state and local police to get in
on the enforcement game, noting that traffic cops outnumber
federal immigration agents on the streets. Their constituents
trust their local police force far more than they trust the
Obama administration.”

That’s it in a nutshell. Many
Republicans know they are in trouble with Hispanics over the immigration
issue. However, a number
of them have reason to think promises of a more secure border
won’t happen unless that comes before any other concessions.
You can understand that view in light of the federal government’s
inability or unwillingness to stop abuses in the food stamp
program and the cellphone rip-offs.

• • •

Jim Beam, the retired editor of the American Press, has covered people and politics for more than five decades. Contact him at 494-4025 or jbeam@americanpress.com